Field of the Invention
The present disclosure generally relates to an electrophotographic or electrostatic image forming apparatus, such as a multifunction apparatus having multiple functions of a copier, printer, and facsimile.
Description of the Related Art
There conventionally has been known a configuration of an image forming apparatus where a toner image is transferred from a photosensitive drum (image bearing member) to an intermediate transfer belt (rotating member), and the toner image transferred into the intermediate transfer belt is transferred onto a recording medium. In such a configuration, if the photosensitive drum and intermediate transfer belt stop in a state in contact with each other, and this state continues for a prolonged period, constituents such as, for example, rubber material, fluorine compounds, and so forth of the intermediate transfer belt may migrate onto the photosensitive drum. When such constituents migrate onto the photosensitive drum, this can change charging properties of the photosensitive drum when forming the next image, and can lead to image defects such as streaks being manifested in halftone images. There has been proposed a configuration where toner is interposed between a photosensitive belt (image bearing member) and the intermediate transfer belt when image formation ends (e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-72007). However, if too much toner is interposed between the photosensitive drum and intermediate transfer belt in this configuration, cleaning this toner off before forming the next image will take time. It has been found desirable to provide a configuration where the amount of toner interposed between the image bearing member and the rotating member can be prevented from being excessive.